Most portable devices include capabilities for streaming video downloaded from the Internet. Typically, the portable device operating system provides a streaming video player, and the applications that execute on the portable device interface with the streaming video player for delivering video.
Streaming the video often includes downloading files (e.g., manifest files) with information about the location of the video data and then downloading the video data. This process may cause video delivery to appear slow, especially at the beginning of the video stream display, more so when the portable device is in a network environment with low bandwidth (e.g., utilizing cellular data). This may result in frustration for the user, who may blame the application for the low performance.